Eldo St. David
...is the son of an illegal alien. He was born in Southern California in order to be close to his mother who was living there at the time. A late bloomer, he did not talk much until four-years-old, at which point his mother wished he would "just shut up." He played basketball and football just long enough in high school to jeopardize his chances of dying in a Southeast Asian jungle somewhere. During the summers, he worked in downtown Los Angeles and was an uninvited guest at the Watts Riots. After undergraduate studies at a small, conservative Baptist college in Southern California, he received a Full Departmental Fellowship at a large midwest university in a tiny strip mining town in Little Egypt. He considered pursuing a Doctorate in Literature until being told his best shot at a PhD was researching the letters of the wife of a some-time acquaintance of D. H. Lawrence--suddenly making service in Vietnam seem not quite so bad after all.
Wearing only a pair of Jockey-brand undershorts, and accompanied by the only other three draftees in his group (clean-shaven but tattoo-cheeked Red Jimmy; a bearded, shackled runner-up in a Charles Manson look-alike contest--complete with FBI escort; and someone identifying himself as the seventh-round draft pick of the Minnesota Vikings), Mr. St. David gave himself up without incident to Federal authorities at the Intake Center in Oakland, California, in the summer of 1972.
However, because of the time-space convergence (see diagram at left) of a bowel movement by one of the examining doctors, and the need for a final decision regarding the multiple physical examinations he underwent at The Presidio in San Francisco, the author was deemed physically unfit for life and, or death in the military. Instead, he spent the rest of the Vietnam Era living in Berzerkeley dodging rubber bullets, eating Black Muslim prune muffins, sniffing tear gas, and wondering what-up-with-that in regards to the whys and wherefores of the war.
After leaving Berkely, Mr. St. David briefly returned to the LA area only to be reminded it was "a great place to be from" when he discovered his nextdoor neighbor was the Hillside Strangler. Floating like a butterfly, he moved to Pacific Grove, California, and from there to an island off the coast of Asia, where he lived until he forgot why he went. Currently between armed conflicts, the author has been a vault teller, an inner-city night school teacher, a truck driver, a chicken rancher, a television news reporter, and a short-order cook. More recently, he represented a foreign provincial government in a major world capital. The author's travels include Batu Ferringhi, Trudjillo, Sukhotai, Viamão, Blaenau Ffestiniog, and Cedar Rapids (not necessarily in that order).
Mr. St. David is a card-carrying member of the Pacific Northwest Writer's Association. His hobbies include photography and trying to remember where he put stuff. He speaks Japanese, French, Spanish and some say his English is also pretty good. He is married and lives in the foothills of the North Cascades, somewhere east of Seattle--though also spends a fair amount of time on Maui and in various brew pubs. (If you have any IPA recommendations, he'd love to hear them).
His fiction writing style has been compared favorably to William Faulkner, Kurt Vonnegut and Raymond Carver.
(EDITOR'S NOTE: allowances were made to include Mr. Carver in this group even though he is the only one without a moustache).
Favorite Quotes:
"Only connect." -- E M Forster
"You mean you could've taken your hand out of that cuff at any time?" -- Eddie Valiant (younger brother of Prince)
"No, not at any time, only when it was funny." -- Roger Rabbit